Patriots re-sign Ventrone to practice squad

The Patriots have just announced they’ve re-signed safety Ray Ventrone to the practice squad. Here’s the complete transcript of the transaction:

The New England Patriots re-signed safety Ray Ventrone to their practice squad today. The Patriots now report the league limit of eight players on their practice squad.

Ventrone, 24, was originally signed by the Patriots as an undrafted free agent on April 28, 2005. The 5-foot-10-inch, 200-pound defensive back spent the 2005 season as a member of New England’s practice squad. After spending the 2006 season on injured reserve, Ventrone was signed by the New York Jets on Feb. 21, 2007. He was released by the Jets in the final preseason roster cuts on Sept. 2, 2007 and was signed to New York’s practice squad two days later. Ventrone was released from the Jets practice squad on Sept. 12, 2007. He was signed to the Patriots practice squad on Sept. 19 and was signed to the active roster on Nov. 3. Ventrone made his NFL debut in the Patriots’ 24-20 win at Indianapolis on Nov. 4. He was released on Nov. 7.

Comments

One Response to “Patriots re-sign Ventrone to practice squad”

bigfandan on
November 10th, 2007 10:18 am

Sports writers of the East Coast, you collectively missed the biggest story in NFL this century.

People in Northeast, you are too sheepish! Stop talking about historical run. Your team went to lion’s den and was served up as dinner meal to the home team. Somehow Pats escaped with a win. This is NOT the result NFL, COLTs and many insiders expected to happen. Because they had thing lined to showcase Colts as class of the new image NFL.

You got to understand there is a very sinister anti-pats movement in NFL. The 11-4-2007 game at Colts is going down as the dirtiest game every in NFL history. The NFL management (comp committee headed by Polian and officiating crews heavily influenced by the Colts GM) actively colluded with home team Colts in trying to ruin the perfect season of the 8-0 Patriots. The evidence is so plain and clear.

Fact One: The referees called the most one-side game in NFL history. Thanks for digital video; the evidences are in full display.
On two huge PI calls, Pats players (Hobbs and Harrison) were in a position to make an interception and were dragged down by Colts (Gonzalez and Wayne). Clearly should be no calls or OPIs. The refs gave TWO highly dubious (and free) First-and-Goals in this game to Colts. Wow! Numerous time calls went against Pats when there is none (see Moss OPI) and no calls made when Colts dragged/tackled the Pats receivers while the ball is in the air (see Faulk and Moss play); when these are text-book PIs committed by Colts. TV announcers commented on these calls too.

Fact two:
Colts turned up the heat – Jim Nantz and P. Simms said they have never been so hot and were sweating most of the game.

Fact Three:
Colts pumped the crown noises and the game was unplayable communication-wise.

The noise level is deafening and the crowds were shown to be mostly pretty calm. The noise level would require every fan to be yelling at top of their lungs, not what happened. The noise are artificial. NFL put out a quick memo dismissing this. CBS glitch can only explain so much.

Fact four: NFL cover-up
NFL head of officiating said the referees have done a “good job” and the Head tried to defend the call on Hobbs despite all video evidences. NFL ad Colts also quickly put out memos saying the cause of noise irregularity is CBS. But what about the unprecedented loudness in a relatively small dome by NFL standard. Many reporters said their ear drums hurt at the half-time and some complained about ringing in ears after the game.

Fact Five:
Colts or someone messed with Patriots communication system. Patriots did not have a coach-quarter communication the whole game and played the game by hand-signal. No investigation. More evidence to Fact 4.

Fact Six: More NFL cover up
as Bill Simmons mentioned in this article, in NFLN replay, a couple of Colts PIs were edited out.

NFL is mob lynched BB and Pats, took their 1st round draft and imposed heavy fines for stealing signals that all NFL teams do in one form or another. NFL tried to present a Boy Scout image to a very competitive and advanced game. NFL on the other hand, blatant condone fixing game (by its referees), turning up heat, pumping artificial noise, cutting off communication by Patriot’s opponent, all in the same game.

Nov-4-2007 Colts game goes down as the dirtiest game in NFL history. This should rank right next to the Black Sox game. Why is the League so intent to bring one team down, and so actively participate in unfair play that day and in its quick cover-up? One answer is NFL became so consumed with its image and tried to put the spy-gate behind so hard, it has turned itself into a monster in the process. Game of the Century just turned into the Joke of the Century.

About

Christopher Price is an award-winning sportswriter who has covered the
Patriots since 2001 for Boston Metro. He’s served a contributor to ESPN.com,
SI.com, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and The Miami Herald. His book
“The Blueprint: How the New England Patriots Beat the System to Create the
Last Great NFL Superpower” will be released in October by Thomas Dunne
Books. He can be reached at capeleaguer@hotmail.com.